Archive for November, 2011

I found this article on underwater ice tornadoes to be very interesting. Brinicles are supposedly columns of ice that are formed under calm ocean conditions, when there is a big difference between the water temp, which should be around -1.9C and the air temp which should be -20C. Which happens when the warmer water flows up to the air, freezing into new ice. According to the BBC, “the salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath.” Which creates brinicles. These tornadoes are found in both of the poles, and were filmed under the ice near Little Razorback Island near Antarctica.

Do you think this could cause a large decline in sea life near the poles?

Do you think these could grow into bigger tornadoes and effect more of the world?

I found this interesting article, which talked about cleaner shrimps killing one another. A research shows that any group larger than two shrimps would result in a vicious brawl. I thought this was rather surprising because I never thought that shrimps could behave so violently. Researcher Janine Wong did a study in which he separated shrimps into groups of twos, threes, and fours. They put unlimited food supply and other means to minimize competition for resources.

After 42 days, they found the groups containing more than one or two shrimps had been attacked and murdered. Who knew that shrimps would become a potential killer among their kind! One shrimp was usually spared because of mating reasons. A larger group would decrease the chances of each shrimp being able to produce offspring. He explained his theory as a behavior they develop due to competition of food. They seem to resemble the thinking of wolves, big cats, and other predators where they fight for territories.

An article talks about a 21-year-old man lobster diver who is paralyzed and dying. Expert says that a sickness called “the bends” which caused by diving too-deep without the proper equipment was the reason that this 21-year-old guy is paralyzed and dying. A diving safety expert named Eric Douglas says, “It’s incredibly dangerous, what they are doing”. He also said that they are poorly trained, equipped and they have non of the basic things that divers today would consider mandatory equipment.Divers from Honduras do lobster diving for a living and they still plummet to dangerous depths of up to 120 feet, and divers sometimes do this sixteen times in one day. Dr. Elmer Meija who has treated 250 injured fishermen in the past three years at his clinic in La Ceiba, Honduras. Dr. Elmer says, “it’s very difficult when you see very young people paralyzed from the neck down below and you know they will not improve”. Honduras’ government is also trying to find a solution to the deadly diving cycle.

So, I was reading this article about the rising sea level, and it says that the annual rate of sea level change is .13 in a year! Which would be 4-8 in every 20 years. Within the past century, burning of fossil fuels and other natural activities have released heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Which has caused the Earth’s surface temp to rise and oceans absorbing 80% of this additional heat.

These factors are causing the sea level to rise massively. Inland it can cause erosion, flooding of wetlands, contamination of aquifers & agricultural soils, loss of habitat for fish, birds, and plants. It can also cause larger storm systems to be more destructive. A recent study says that we can expect to see the ocean rise between 2.5ft and 6.5ft by 2100 ans will swamp most of the U.S. East Coast cities. And if there was a complete meltdown of the Greenland ice cap the sea level would rise to 23 feet. Which would be enough water to completely submerge London and Los Angeles.

*did you know there is enough water in the East Antarctic ice sheet to drastically change sea levels by 164 feet.

I think there is pretty much no way of stopping the sea level because of global warming, do you think we could take precautions and try to help slow the rising down?

What do you think would happen to all of the people living in the coastal areas of the world?

I was reading this article that talks about sharks and it said that they could cure human diseases, including all viruses. Dogfish Sharks are mostly the ones that has the virus killer but scientists are still trying to find out if other sharks have them too. The new study says that it can also disrupt virus’s life cycle and prevent it from replacing in. “Sharks aren’t just tough on the outside”, it was one of the line as scientists describe the new study. Leader Zasloff predicted that clinical trials for the antiviral will begin in people in about a year and he also said that some sharks have been hiding an anti-biotic called squalamine. This article also talks about how the virus of a human could possibly be cured by the anti-biotic of a shark. This article surprised me because I didn’t know sharks could be a solution for our health problems like dengue and all the other viruses. It also gave me the idea that if sharks could kill viruses then many animals could might do the same thing.

Do you know any animal that kills viruses?

What do you think will happen to the patient that got cured by sharks after?

I chose this article because I thought it was amusing and interesting to read. As stated in the title, gummy bears have been one of the lucky (or should I say unlucky) items chosen to take part in underwater crush tests. University of Washington researchers in the South Pacific near Samoa plans to send down gummy bears and other ordinary items, such as Styrofoam cups, cell phones, and soda pop cans to the crush test so that they can find out more about underwater waves.

I thought it was fascinating to know that these mysterious waves were “as tall as skyscrapers and moved thousands of feet below the ocean surface.” It was something I never really thought of when considering waves and the idea still baffles me. Associate Professor of Applied Physics, Matthew Alford, filmed the items that were sent down below the ocean surface with his “crush cam.” Unfortunately, it had been crushed itself due to massive forces from the ocean. He hopes that in the future he would be able to develop an underwater camera to observe the outcome results of the gummy bears.

What do you think the outcome of the gummy bears will be in these crush tests?

I read this article about how parrotfish and surgeonfish are eating seaweeds off reefs. This helps the coral grow. Too much seaweed on reefs kills the coral, but with the fish living on the reefs eating the seaweeds the corals are saved. The fish use the reefs as a nesting ground, so baby fish are born there. This means there’s more fish to eat the seaweeds and save the reef.

This article was very interesting. I think it’s cool that the fish can save reefs by eating seaweed. What do you think will happen to the reefs if the fish disappear or over populate? What other importance do coral reefs have? What else uses them?

I was looking at this article and I thought it was interesting how a pod of killer whales were able to think of this strategy. The killer whales work as a group and make wakes to try and knock their pray off of whatever they are sitting on and when it finally falls off they hunt it down and eat it. Robert Pitman from the National Marine Fisheries Service in California joined the team and researched these killer whales new hunting technique which is surprising effective.

I recently read an article about shark attacks and the likely hood you have to survive an actually attack, Most people who are attacked are male, actually according to documented attacks from 1580 to 2010 93% of attacks were on males, and in 2010 North American waters were responsible for 42 of all unprovoked shark attacks worldwide and there was 32 attacks in total. And one of the more surprising statistics is surfers accounted for more the 50% of all attacks in 2010, and 2010 was the most dangerous year for unprovoked shark attacks in a decade with 79. Why do you think that these attacks are unprovoked? Do you think that there is anything we can do to prevent these attacks?

I read this article about how climate change is affecting animals. Do to the changing temperature living things have to move where it’s cooler. On land they are going up and in water they are going down. Some marine organisms can’t go deeper, but it’s too hot at there natural home now. They can’t go on land, so they have nowhere to go now. The article didn’t say exactly which species these were, but my guess is that some of them might go extent if they don’t find a suitable habitat. Animals can move easier then plants (which are just as if not more sensitive to temperature change.) This is affecting ocean life more then land life, which is what it has to do with this class. If you read the article you will see.

I think that this article was really interesting. It does prove that global warming is real. It also shows that it has a major affect on the oceans. I mean land too, but that’s well..that. Makes you wonder will we still be around 100 years from now? I don’t care if you hate this post or love it…or if you have no opinion on it whatsoever. What do you think will happen to the marine life that can’t live anywhere? Will they find a place or die? How long will it take for either one to happen?